The present invention relates to a process of decontaminating (disinfecting) textiles contaminated with bacteria.
The presence of certain bacteria on textiles being the cause of serious pathogenic risks, such a decontamination is of obvious interest in the field of hygiene; in particular, in the field of domestic or group hygiene, for instance in the hospital environment.
Although certain bacteria, such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa are very sensitive to conventional disinfectants, such as for instance hypochlorite, others are of such virulence that the need to destroy them can justify destruction of the textile itself which they contaminate. In the most general case, however, when, for example, there is a contamination of the textiles by bacteria such as non-spore forming bacteria; e.g. Streptococcus fecalis, Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), or Escherichia coli (E. coli), treatments are searched for which preserve the initially contaminated textiles.
The economic justification of such treatments must, however, remain compatible with a sufficiently effective bactericidal effect, which no longer is the case when the textiles are subjected to a detergent action at a temperature below about 70.degree. C.
That is what is brought out for instance by the article by Joanne C. Wiksell, Mary S. Pickett and Paul A. Hartmann in Applied Microbiology, 25, No. 3, March 1973, pp. 431-435.
A modification of the detergent treatment then becomes required, which consists of resorting to a chlorinated disinfectant such as, for instance, sodium hypochlorite or chlorinated organic compounds.
That is, for instance, what William G. Walter and John B. Shillinger recommend in Applied Microbiology, 29, No. 3, March 1975, pp. 368-373 or Robert R. Christian, Janet T. Manchester and Michael T. Mellori in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 45, No. 2, February 1983, pp. 591-597.
Disinfection in the presence of active chlorine, however, presents as major drawbacks the involvement of the risk of corrosion of the treatment istallations, the necessity of a subsequent neutralization and, in the case of hypochlorite; the disinfectant most commonly used, the irreversible appearance in the form of colored stains of chlorohexidene or its derivatives, of the family of bis-diguanides, another class of disinfectants very much used in the hospital environment.